Thursday, September 07, 2006

Thursday Lyric: Stormfront

This is a particularly powerful piece. It's more of a spoken-word verse than a song as such, but the powerful music doesn't hurt. I got the text here, but I heartily recommend the album Sparrow's Wing.

StormfrontGarnet Rogers

As silent as the voice of Godthese empty barren hillsthey hover above the dry plainthey shimmer in the distanceI feel a sudden chillThe ground is dry and cracked like an old mans skin stretched across the plainLightning flickering across the thunderheadEmpty promises of rain

Some kind of stormfront on the move tonightFeel the tension in the airDust devils dance on the side of the highwayLeaves and garbage everywhereMothers call their kids from the door"C'mon get inside, shut the windows, lock them tight"The sun has burned its bridgesplunged into the mountains in a sea of steamand poison light

ChorusI hear thunder bumping boxcars in the valleythe wind is laughing up my sleevethe cars have turned their headlights onIt's way past time-- I should be gone

We've turned our towns into a filthy jokelike a theme park built for swineWe bulldoze farms, fields turn them into strip mallsNobody seems to mindWho elected these cheap hustlers anyway?This worthless pack of pimps and whoresThe developers come smiling with their pockets jingling full of changeWe get down on all fours

And I don't want your Black Hills goldNot at any pricewe built a trail of tears and broken trees through herethen swarmed the earth like liceTownhouses, casinos and trailer parksCheap neon light up the falling nightI saw the Four Horsemen ride through here about an hour agoThey were sickened at the sight

These highway signs are full of bullet holesBurnt rubber cross the roadSomeone's angry about something somewhere hereThey're just waiting to unloadWe're putting bombs in buildingsBombs in letters, bombs in trucksWe're drowning kids in the backs of carsWe're dressing killers in Armani suitsWe turn them into TV stars

We become a race of leering voyeursWe're big on Progress Sex and DeathSomething evil is lurking in the darkness here with meand I can smell its stinking breathIt's in the blankness of our children's staresIt's in a courtroom in a suitIt's in the hand that holds gun that made these bullet holesIt's a secret pocket filled with lootIt's the soft white faces of these soft white menwith their soft white grasping handwho laugh and sneer at those who have to stand and wait in lineand never got their chance